Monday, April 19, 2004

I don’t often document my dreams because I’m just not that kind of person. I enjoy dreaming, mind you. I find it highly entertaining. I just don’t think my dreams are significantly more interesting than anyone else’s, so I don’t tend to write about them.

Last night’s episode got me thinking, however. It was a variation on a recurring dream I’ve had for years. It usually unfolds like so: Bigfoot is at my front door. He wants in. I am scared as beejeezus when he glares at me through the windows. In a retro twist last night, the band KISS was outside my childhood home, trying to break in. (As in the band that painted their faces with black and white makeup and sang such classics as “[I wanna] Rock and Roll all Nite.”)

I first noticed KISS lurking on the driveway when I went out to the attached two-car garage for some reason. I peered at them through the horizontal garage door windows; the cat guy (Peter Criss), the hairy chested guy (Paul Stanley) and the girlie looking guy (Ace Frehley). Scarlet-tongued Gene Simmons (devil looking guy) was nowhere to be seen. (You’d think Gene would have been there, ‘cause Kitty Man and the others don’t really strike me as silver-lame’d troublemakers.) But here they were loitering, sans Gene, outside my garage. I realized I’d been spotted when their heads whipped in my direction. I locked the garage door and ran back inside the house as they made menacing faces and gestures in my direction. I ran from door to door throughout the house, checking the locks. The band members were always one step behind me, rattling the knobs or gesticulating through the windows.

I had just finished my security check of the kitchen when the band walked in (still sans Gene). I don’t recall if their appearance denoted my shoddy door-locking abilities, or if they simply materialized into the house. Either way, I yelled to them, “I am calling the police!” and dialed 911 on the cell phone that was suddenly in-hand. The band cockily preened in the kitchen as I spoke with the police dispatcher; yet the three in makeup didn’t speak a word. The scene closed as I calmly stated, “Yes, officer, one of them has a gun.” Peter Criss, cat-faced crooner of the ballad “Beth” sneered as he held up a gleaming cowboy pistol with white plastic grips. I suddenly awoke to my son’s morning mantra of “Uh-Oh,” “Uh-Oh,” which means he’s dropped his pacifier. Thank goodness he rescued mommy from “Glam Gone Bad” before things went too far.

So why was this dream worthy of note? Was it more unusual or creative than my previous dreams? Nah. The big revelation is that Bigfoot is no longer the sole antagonist of this recurring dream. He’s been replaced, or else he goes on vacation sometimes. Read more about “Bigfoot Dreams, Part Two” in the next installment, coming soon to a blog near you.